Monthly Archives: November 2011

It’s the one day of the year when your friends and family stop, just for a second, to realise just how utterly brilliant you are – and the day comes complete with perks:

You’re older; you’re turning into a wise old sausage now.

There are presents; everyone likes presents.

You get lots of attention; it’s always nice to be in the limelight, right?

Cake; you’re never too far from an iced-strawberry sponge on your birthday.

So with all that said, it’s fair to say that I absolutely…

Positively…

Undoubtedly…

Do not look forward to my birthday. Ever.
(Although I do laugh whenever I hear the word ‘sponge’)

Firstly, I’m older; I’m one year closer to being dead.

How do I know this? Wisdom.

There are presents; brilliant – but there’s also the awkwardness of having to give ‘the reaction’ once you’ve opened them. You know which one I mean; when you make a point of showing just how grateful you are, maybe with an over-the-top “WOW THANKS” for something as simple as a Walnut Whip.

I’m not saying I don’t like a Walnut Whip every now and again, but I’m yet to come across one that makes me act like I’ve just laid a golden egg.

I would love to lay an egg.

What if people, who see my bodged reaction, start thinking I like Walnut Whip SO much that, for the rest of my life, all anyone ever gets me for my birthday is some chocolate-nut thing? No thank you.

I’m not the most animated of people, either. I could be jubilant that you’ve just bought me a white chocolate Toblerone and a box of Lego, but whenever I try to give ‘the reaction’ I try so hard that I either end up sounding sarcastic or, even worse, looking like I’m trying to hide the fact that I’m disappointed (although, seriously, I would be genuinely devastated if someone actually got me a Walnut Whip for my birthday – don’t you love me?).

For this reason, as grateful as I am to receive them, I like to open my presents in private – preferably in my room.

Or in a cave.

Onto another birthday perk; you get lots of attention.

Justin Bieber gets lots of attention.

I am not Justin Bieber.

Am I shy? No I’m not, but just the thought of being the center of attention makes me cringe. It’s not for me.

Last year, on my birthday, I walked into a lecture at my university – only for most of the class to break into a chorus of ‘happy birthday’ – easily the most cringe-worthy moment of the entire year. It was bad enough that I was standing in front of around 25 people all singing to me, but the cringe meter hit the danger mark around 30 seconds in, when people were getting bored of singing it, so it started trailing off (like when old people sing at Christmas but fall asleep half-way through). Then, of course, came the compulsory “HIP HIP HOORAY.” By this point most people were either asleep or had left the room, leaving one person to shout “HIP HIP” – followed by complete silence.

A tumbleweed may have bobbled past, I forget.

A similar thing happened this year at the local Chinese restaurant: Imagine lots of Chinese people (don’t worry, I’m going somewhere with this); now imagine lots of Chinese people staring directly at you as your friends sing happy birthday.

Does anyone know the Chinese for CRINGE?

If you’d like to wish me happy birthday, great thank you! But put it in a card, or say it on my Twitter or Facebook page, don’t put me in a situation where I feel like I’m having that ‘turning up for class with no clothes on’ dream, please.

Finally, there’s cake;

I like cake.

So there it is. In case anyone was curious, I’m now 24. Next year I’ll be a quarter century old – like a tree. I can see that strop being a big one. I’m giving you a whole year to brace yourselves.

All moaning aside, I actually had a brilliant birthday this year.

To everyone who bought me presents or cards, said happy birthday or even embarrassed me in the presence of our Chinese brethren – BIG THANK YOU!

Don’t get me wrong, the day someone tells me I can’t have cheese grated onto my beans on toast will be a sad day;

The day the world runs out of tea bags… No, I can’t even finish that sentence.

But there is one luxury, if you can call it that, I absolutely cannot live without; I demand it; I would be more than prepared to throw all of my proverbial toys out of any given proverbial pram to get it.

I can’t stress this enough.

I have to be warm.

My bed, for example, has four layers of thick blankets and a duvet. It is the bed to end all beds. Actually, I challenge anyone who thinks their bed could be warmer than mine to get in touch (so I can tell you how wrong you are).

When it’s remotely chilly, I won’t go outside unless I’m wearing a jumper, a coat, gloves and scarf – minimum. To me November has been chilly so far this year. So, true to form, I have looked good this month.

It’s pretty safe to say that fashion goes out of the window when I want to be warm; the warmest thing I own is a hideous orange and brown-striped hoody. So, needless to say, I wear that a lot. Come to think of it, people probably think I’m a tramp.

I do own other clothes.

So, yes, I like to be warm. I dislike anything that causes me to feel chilly (I’m probably going to be one of those old people who constantly complains about the draft – when there isn’t a draft).

This leads me nicely into the point of this post.

I am chilly. I’m absolutely freezing.

You know that thing that happens to your nipples when you’re cold? Well my nipples have been like this continuously for an entire week. I’m tired. My nipples are tired.

One of the worst things that could ever happen to me is the death of the boiler during winter. But the boiler is dead, or it’s dying. Whichever way you look at it, our boiler is on its backside right now and it’s my nipples that are paying the price.

When we first moved into this house the boiler didn’t work. A man came to fix it, his name was Rod. It turns out his name wasn’t actually Rod but he answered to it for a good few hours so how were we supposed to know any better?

No-name-Rod supposedly fixed the boiler and everything seemed to be going well… Until we decided we wanted to use the central heating.

They (women) say men can’t multitask (apparently simultaneously scratching and burping doesn’t count) and if you believe this then you will agree that my boiler is a man-boiler. It will heat the water, but not the house.

When we ask it to do both it gets confused, makes some interesting banging sounds, and then goes to sleep – refusing to heat anything at all.

We called another repairman, whose name I didn’t actually get (probably Rod) and he ‘fixed’ the boiler. His last words before he left were, “see how you get on with that.” Hours later the boiler broke again – leading me to believe that Rod number two spent an hour replacing, what I can only assume, were perfectly functional parts of the boiler.

So now we’re waiting on another Rod, one who knows how to fix a boiler hopefully.

In the meantime, I’m finding it almost impossible to get out of my ridiculously warm bed in the mornings because we live in a fridge. I’m pretty sure it’s warmer outside. As for the shower, have you ever been naked in a fridge? That’s pretty much what it feels like when I get out of the shower right now.

I might just stop showering, especially if people think I’m a tramp anyway.

So maybe I’ve had problems with the boiler; at the end of the day, I might have to wait a little longer (although I hope not) but it will get sorted and I’ll be cosy and warm again, finding other things to strop over.

Most of these people probably have perfectly functional boilers, but won’t be using them.

The latest fuel poverty statistics report suggests that there were 4million UK households living in fuel poverty in 2009. Back in 2001 it affected 1.7million homes. That’s an increase of 2.3million; Quite a cock-up, considering 2001 was the year the government launched its fuel poverty strategy.

On one hand this increase in fuel poverty shouldn’t come as a surprise, after all, there’s been no hiding from the well-publicised increase in energy prices. But on the other hand, as part of the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000, the government not only has a moral obligation to eradicate fuel poverty, but it has a legal duty to do so.

If I acted against government legislature I would expect to be punished by the long arm of the law. Who will be punished for this legal obligation not being met? I could hazard a guess. Nobody. This sausage thinks that the words ‘government’ and ‘accountability’ need to be associated with each other far more frequently.

Or shall we just ignore fuel poverty and the deepening crisis that numerous governments have failed to fully address?

I can’t decide what’s worse, the fact that someone would instinctively think I have an eating disorder from looking at me, or that this diagnosis has come from a builder-cum-lorry driver who clearly fancies his chances as a doctor-cum-physician.

You, sir, should stick to your day job.

For anyone who knows me, this will probably be hard to believe, but between 14-16 years old I was actually one of the tallest in my year group. Of course, there were always the few proverbial ‘bean poles’ that towered over the rest of us like, well, bean poles, obviously.

Still, I was still pretty tall for my age.

At 16 I weighed around nine stone (126lbs/57kg) and looked down on most at just under six-feet-tall. The point I’m trying to make is that I was happy with my height and general build.

As far as I was concerned I was growing into a man sausage (sounds well).

But I wasn’t; I wasn’t growing at all.

Now, at 24, I weigh around nine stone (126lbs/57kg) and still find myself looking down on most (children, midgets and people with no legs) at just under six-feet-tall. I am a man-child.

This confuses me. It’s not like I don’t eat. Actually, I eat regularly. I love my food.

What I don’t love is the pregnant sticky-out belly that I get when I’ve had one too many Nutri-Grain bars. I also don’t love how my parents buy me Nutri-Grain bars faster than I can eat them. I don’t even like Nutri-Grain bars. Buy me something useful – like armbands, for when I’m on the toilet.

So at 57kg, admittedly I’m underweight (and by some way according NHS guidance). Perhaps I haven’t managed my diet properly. Perhaps the NHS guidance was put together by a team of builder-cum-lorry drivers? Maybe not, but all I know is I’m fine. I feel fine. I feel healthy.

I do not suffer from an eating disorder.

However, eating disorder charity Beat predicts that over 1.6million people in the UK are affected by an eating disorder.

Naturally, I hear ‘eating disorder’ and immediately my mind skips to anorexia and bulimia. I’m sure I’m not on my own here – and rightly so, they are serious conditions after all. It is, however, also worth noting that there are other forms of eating disorder, such as binge eating disorder and EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified). All just as serious as bulimia and anorexia.

Fantastic. The media jump on the bandwagon; everyone’s excited about raised awareness for male eating disorders. But is anyone going to mention that it’s probably the media’s fault that many people believed only women were susceptible in the first place?

Do we not recall the relentless push for everyone to be size zero, and thus, about as attractive as the prospect of putting a toenail up your nose?

This is usually followed by attempting the arduous hangover tasks of opening your eyes and then, you know, moving. I’m not saying that the execution of these tasks is always perfect, but it’s the taking part that counts, right?

Wrong.

When there’s a race between your legs and your belly – your legs wanting to get to the bathroom and your belly wanting to throw up before you get there – it’s definitely the winning that counts. Unfortunately for me belly was slightly faster, causing me to have one of those moments where you realise: “uh-oh, I’m not going to make it.” So for me the fun and games all started at the kitchen sink.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not much of a drinker, so a hangover isn’t remotely new to me; many a morning have I woken up and wished that I hadn’t drank the night before. But this time I couldn’t even remember the night before.

This was no ordinary hangover.

If Hitler was a hangover, this was Hitler.

I found myself unable to carry out some of the basics. Standing up is pretty basic – I just couldn’t do it! I had no balance whatsoever (Maybe my drink was spiked, who knows?).

Then there was the throwing up – good grief the throwing up. I won’t go into too much detail on this, but let’s just say it was messy and frequent. We’ll leave that there.

Luckily for me, I live with one of my best friends, who looked after me and did whatever it is that people can do for you in this situation – which was basically just watch me throw up. But still, I appreciated it.

The nice lady from NHS direct decided that the ‘symptoms’ that I was showing weren’t normal and an ambulance was sent.

The paramedics checked me over and were happy enough that I would be fine. As far as I was concerned I was dying and we may as-well skip the ambulance and take me straight to the morgue.

As it turns out, after nine hours of hell, I physically couldn’t be sick anymore. I fell asleep and woke up several hours later with that ‘THANK GOD’ feeling that we all get after a hangover nap (in my case it was more a coma than a nap but I’ll let that slide).

It took a few days to get back to normality, but everything was fine.

But this isn’t the case for everyone – brace yourself, this is about to get depressing.

Across the UK people have developed all sorts of alcohol-related illnesses thanks to their drinking habits or drinking problems. Liver problems are the most common and can even lead to people needing new livers. The problem with this is that there aren’t enough organ donors compared to the amount of people actually looking for new organs. This doesn’t surprise me even a little bit, I’m sure that I’m not on my own in saying that I have no plans to register as an organ donor. However selfish this may seem, these body parts are mine, they are meant to be inside me. Not you.

Anyway, due to the shortage of donors, criteria has been put in place to help the ‘best-matched’ candidates receive the organs that are available. Patient details are loaded into a computer and matched up with the criteria.

Brilliant. But what about the people who aren’t considered as a ‘best match’ by the NHS Super Nintendo? What about the people who drink themselves silly through negligence or even through a genuine drinking problem? The harsh truth is that, in many cases, they die.

This is why it’s so important for us to look after ourselves. The attitude that the NHS seems to have adopted is one of ‘if you don’t look after yourself, we won’t look after you either.’ Whether or not this attitude is justified is up for debate but it highlights the responsibility we have to look after ourselves. There is only so much that charities, like Drinkaware and Alcohol Concern, can do – although both websites are handy if you do think you have a drinking problem.

So, it’s pretty safe to say that, although I don’t have a drinking problem, I’m off the alcohol for the foreseeable future (just the thought of drinking makes my stomach curl).

Strangely it’s up there on the ‘taboo conversations’ list with love songs, our feelings and problems with our danglers…

Thankfully, I have no ‘dangler problems’ to report, touch wood (pun intended).

As for hair loss, I wish I could say the same.
But I can’t.

At the risk of causing a collective cringe amongst men everywhere, I will be talking about it!

For my entire adult life I have had fairly long hair – I’m talking shoulder length at its longest. Basically, I’ve had a mop on my head for the past seven years. But now I, like so many others, have been struck by the early signs of the curse of hereditary hair loss.

Hereditary; the term scientists invented to allow the blaming of our parents for pretty much everything that is wrong with us.

Personally I’m not sure which is worse – the fact that I’m losing my hair because of my dad, or the fact that I’m going to look like him once I have! That’s not a swipe at my dad, by the way – I’m just saying that I don’t think I’m ready to look like a 63-year-old just yet!

My hair is only thinning right now so I’m still a few years away from this being too much of an issue – but I know what’s coming and I don’t like it.

Apparently ‘It has been proven that the activating caffeine ingredient in Alpecin shampoo can increase hair growth by slowing down the effects of hereditary hair loss.’

Right, OK. That’s what the bottle says. But, based on my continued use of this product, I believe I would have seen similar results from rubbing the leftovers of my morning coffee directly onto my head. My head would still receive caffeine, but I wouldn’t have to pay an extra £4.95 for the privilege (and my hair still wouldn’t be any thicker).

Granted, some people may be willing to pay £4.95 every few months in order to not smell like coffee. But I am not. Plus I like the smell of coffee. 1-0 to coffee.

Oh and you can’t drink shampoo. 2-0 to coffee.

Another option against hair loss is to have a hair transplant; a procedure that involves a lot of pain and a lot of money.

For anyone who doesn’t know, the procedure involves hair being taken from one side of the head and stuck into the other side (not the most eloquent way of putting it, I know).

On the off-chance that I did have £32,000 down the back of my settee (which I don’t) I’m pretty sure I still wouldn’t have a hair transplant – mainly because my pain threshold is just too low. Growing hair shouldn’t hurt, it hasn’t hurt for 23 years and I’m not about to let it!

By the way, if you think this procedure doesn’t sound painful, take a look at this video of Wayne Rooney during his hair transplant…

Luckily for Wayne Rooney, he hasn’t quite made it onto ‘the list’. Maybe after another £32,000.

As I wind my strop down, I’ll say it through gritted teeth; it seems there is literally no way of preventing hair loss without going to almost unreachable extremes.

Does anyone want their hair to fall out? No.

Should we accept that one way or another it’s going to happen? Probably.

Should people, with better hair than me, still be sleeping with one eye open?

So I’ll be starting with a confession; I am, in all honesty, not an actual sausage. Congratulations if you figured this out beforehand!

There is, however, one trait that I share with the sausage – the inability to grow facial hair. There, I said it. Not only does the sausage not have the ability to grow hair, but it also doesn’t have a face.

I have a face.

I also have a penis. So I’m a man, right? Right. Except I can’t grow facial hair and, while younger men sport some pretty impressive face-bushes, I can’t help but feel less manly (despite the giveaway penis).

Strangely, a hairy face is almost like a badge of honour for some, “look how manly I am”. If we’re measuring manliness by the amount of hair on a man’s face, my current affiliation to the male gender could be under threat.

When I was younger I always thought that when I grew up I’d have a beard, just because beards are what grownups have right? But I’m 23 now; I’ve been an adult for almost SEVEN years. I don’t have a beard.

Usually this is a complex that I push to the back of my mind and only surfaces when I have to look one of those younger, hairy, man-children in the face. But not this month…

This month is ‘No Shave November’ or ‘Movember‘. According to The Urban Dictionary, this is when men all over the world down razors for a month and get hairy. This is a definite no-win situation for me. Do I participate and become the laughing-stock of The Society of Bearded Gentlemen because I can’t grow facial hair? Or do I not participate and be seen as the Scrooge who didn’t take part?

What is a sausage to do!?

Whoever came up with this idea is not on my Christmas card list and has ruined my life for an entire month! For thirty days and thirty nights everything will be about facial hair and my lack thereof.

I can just see it now:

I’ll be in the pub waiting to get a drink and BOOM – the barman has a beard!

I’ll be at KFC. I’ll be tucking into a boneless banquet for one when I will glance upwards – and drop my chicken fillet in horror as I realise Colonel Sanders was a hairy-faced man.

The doorbell will ring. Mr Postman has a parcel for me? Thanks Mr Postman! I wonder if Mr Postman knows that his mammoth beard has its own post code. I wonder if Mr Postman knows that I hate him.

I could go on. I won’t, but on a side note you should probably take a good look at Colonel Sanders and try to convince me that he isn’t Rolf Harris.

That is definitely Rolf Harris.

Jokes aside, let’s be fair for a second. There is actually a serious side to ‘Movember’ that needs to be acknowledged; a lot of people are taking part in ‘Movember’ to help raise money for wonderful causes such as The Multiple Sclerosis Trust, Macmillan Cancer Support, Mind and Everyman. ‘Movember’ was initially set up to raise money specifically for testicular cancer, but since this has spread to charities all over the world. I can’t help but break briefly from my strop to tip my cap to society for taking such a mass act of absolute stupidity and using it as a method to help raise money for charity. For this the human race is amazing.

So Movember could be a stroke of genius, but that doesn’t change the fact that I still don’t have my beard.

Actually, should I be moaning about the fact that I can’t grow facial hair? Is facial hair even that great? I predict (based on nothing) that with a reasonably bushy beard, the face is at least 75% more flammable.

Apparently women aren’t particularly fond of facial hair either. Many women are supposedly refusing to get under the covers with their partners this month, causing many to rebrand ‘No Shave November’ as ‘No SEX November’, which funnily enough I will be participating in.